


Forever is a long time

by DredgenTrust



Series: Shadows of Yor [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 06:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20354134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DredgenTrust/pseuds/DredgenTrust
Summary: "I'll be a villain.""Only to those who do not truly matter."





	Forever is a long time

_Callum: And Paola?_

_Vale: Your Ghost understands as well as you. She is safe now, with Bane, given a new shell and… sad… but aware of what is at stake._

_~ **'The Culling'**_

* * *

Perhaps it’s cowardice, that Teben doesn’t bid farewell to Callum properly.

No, there’s no uncertainty about it. He’s a coward, and he knows that one of the kindest people he knows will be tarring himself as a corrupted failure. A monster. That he won’t be safe, ever; if he is safe then so are those who follow him and once the rotten ones among them are known they must be removed from play.

A wonder, that anybody would look at Cull and think him savage. A man whose most cherished part of the darkness is the new forms of life it brings. The tender things that can find purchase in the shade between blinding light and void. The man grows hive corruption in little glass jars, finds the perfect conditions so that the organisms making it up can thrive and sustain themselves.

But the man is broad, his face shadowed more often than not by worries he never voices aloud. Not even to Teben. Strong hands, all bulk and with a forceful efficiency to his movements that would set even him on edge were the warlock not familiar with them. Had that strength not saved his hide many times.

Nonetheless, it’s an unkindness that everyone is so willing to believe. To accept on face of it that Cull’s quiet watchfulness had been hiding such a bitter core. That he’d been waiting and hating them all, until he could no longer stand to even be near them. Perhaps the younger converts had no other reference for that kind of patience, or perhaps they’d all been rather obtuse in showing their affections.

The last Teben sees of Callum is one of those odd moments, both of them knowing what is to come. So they sit, not surrounded by the other shadows but very much feeling their weight. It’s just the two of them, side by side, watching the flames burn low in the dark. Neither of them really discusses it; Teben doesn’t know how to ask, what to say. Questioning why he’d be willing to follow Vale’s plan would be the height of hypocrisy, after all. Even if it means being hated by all, they both know it’s not so different from how things used to be. When the image of Yor was still writ large in everyone’s minds, less of a cautionary tale and more an active hatred. They’d been hated then; the only difference now would be that Callum wouldn’t even have the other Dredgen. And Teben has always been willing to follow Vale to any fate, no matter how terrible. Callum is allowed to do the same.

He ends up asking, eventually, about how the mushroom farm that the titan's ship eventually became is faring. Whether the new strains come out differently away from the hive curses that spawned them, or if they are as sickly with dark as ever. Callum talks with his usual restrained excitement, promises his notes to him as if Teben knows even half the amount about the more physical side of the hive that he’d need to understand them. He knows already that he’ll do his best to learn, though.

They talk in this manner for some time, about things that they’ve been meaning to learn about one another. Small curiosities, little amusements and affections that simply never came out in normal discussion. Throughout it, Teben does his best to note what details he could. The scatter of freckles against Callum’s neck, the way his nose scrunches just a little as he smiles. The way he does his best to only let those smiles break through when doesn’t see Teben looking, as though it’s some sort of secret or shame that he worries over. The shift of his hands as he speaks, how he likes to gaze down at the fire instead of meeting Teben’s gaze, but no less close because of it.

The press of their shoulders together, companionable and solid.

For a moment, Teben wants to take ahold oh him and… he isn’t sure what. Convince him that Vale is wrong, that this isn’t needed and no good will come of it. Or simply pull him close, feel him safe for just a little longer. Funny, how he has always seemed so capable before now; never before has Teben felt real fear for the titan.

The sky above them is vast and starless and with the fire dying beside them he seems so very small.

They share a hug before parting, Callum pressing a kiss to his brow in one last benediction. Teben simply squeezes his hand, nods in what he can hope is assurance. They don’t say goodbye, or even wish one another good luck. They bid one another goodnight, and in the morning Cull is gone.

The number of Shadows that follow him shakes even Vale a little, and there is so very much to fear that Teben can only spare so much for absent friends. Only take so much time out of every day to wonder if Cull is well out there amidst his band of hungry Unmade. They’re dying off, he thinks. The balance of dark and light is fragile at the best of times, Cull’s followers simply aren’t keeping it in check and that means either they burn out or burn one another or someone does it for them.

A very specific someone, as it turns out.

To his shame, to his eternal agony, he hasn’t thought of Cull at all the day it happens.

Vale steps into his quarters, a ghost at his side, and it takes a moment for the disparity to hit. Not Vale’s ghost, this. Not Vale’s at all; he knows the way the optic jitters just slightly, the way it dips and ducks a little as they go through the door, used to hovering somewhere higher than by Vale’s ear. Dissonance, ringing through him clear and soundless, and the look on Vale’s face says all he needs to know.

“Paola,” the word is quiet, dull. He looks to her, summons Aris to him with a silent plea and a hand outstretched. “Where is he?”

“He can’t be raised,” Vale says, words heavy as they leave his tongue.

Well, then. That is that, he supposes. One more thing from Vale that despite his own misery and wonder he will not question. Callum is dead, and his ghost is not, but despite it all he is gone regardless.

“His ghost wanted to see you.” She moves closer, comes to settle by the warlock's head instead, and Teben closes his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, meaning _go_. Meaning _leave now_. Meaning _please, I know you hate it when I cry_.

Vale seems to understand, and presses a hand to his cheek before he leaves.


End file.
